Beautiful Yetta’s Hanukkah Kitten

Yetta, the Pinkwaters’ inimitable Yiddish-speaking, Brooklyn-dwelling chicken, is back in her second picture book, this time playing figurative mother hen and adoption agency for a stray kitten that she finds lost in a snowdrift. Yetta’s Spanish-speaking wild parrots friends/nest mates are dubious at first: “Es un gato!” they exclaim. “Es iz a kind!” Yetta insists. “Lomir es geb esn” (“It is a baby! Let’s feed it”). But they quickly come around and help Yetta find a good home during Hanukkah (“when the humans are in a good mood”) for the kitty—who in turn reveals it can teach the parrots a thing or two about latkes. Jill Pinkwater’s bright, freestyle drawings are as bighearted and chatty as the multilingual, multispecies text. Ages 3–7. Agent: Jennifer Laughran, Andrea Brown Literary Agency. (Oct.)